Pete's Walks - Pitstone Hill and Wigginton (page 1 of 5)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
I did this circular walk of about 11.5 miles on Friday, 13th August 2021. It was a route I've walked many times before, in fact it is Walk 4 of my Chiltern Chain Walk, although today I walked it in the clockwise direction (I usually do it this way round, mainly to get most of the ups and down over with early in the walk).
I parked in the car park for Pitstone Hill (grid reference SP 954148) and started walking about 10.15am, crossing the lane and following the Ridgeway national trail towards Steps Hill. When I reached a path crossroads near the foot of the hill, I turned right (leaving the Ridgeway) and followed a path alongside a fence on my right. After a while the path started to rise gently uphill through an area of bushes. After going through a gate it continued up the now wooded hillside until it met a track (the main track between the Bridgewater Monument at Ashridge and Ivinghoe Beacon), where I turned right. After two or three hundred yards (just before reaching the kennels on Clipper Down) I forked right onto a track that dropped down a few yards through trees to a gate. Beyond the gate the footpath continued downhill along the edge of a large pasture.
The Ridgeway at the start of the walk, heading towards Steps Hill
The Ridgeway approaching Steps Hill
The path after I turned right at the foot of Steps Hill
The path continuing uphill
The path continuing uphill
The track from near Ivinghoe Beacon to the Monument at Ashridge
The start of the path descending Clipper Down
The path descending Clipper Down
The path descending Clipper Down
I had a very close encounter with some Fallow deer here. I had just finished photographing some Clustered Bellflower (the first I'd seen this year) when I heard the thunder of hooves very close to me! I looked up just in time to see the brown flank of a large animal just a few yards away, which had obviously seen me at the last minute and was turning to run back the way it had come. As it ran off I could see it was mature Fallow buck (big antlers), and there were a couple of young bucks with it (small spiky antlers). When the hedge on my right ended I emerged into a large open downland field, with a nice view ahead towards Aldbury and another to my right towards the woods of Aldbury Nowers. A bit further on I saw presumably the same older Fallow buck with six or seven young bucks, running across the hillside ahead of me and then across a corn field. I also saw my first Chalkhill Blue butterflies of 2021 along here. Near the bottom of the slope the path curved left to reach a gate in the field corner, a short path then bringing me to a surfaced drive, where I turned left towards Duncombe Farm.
The path descending Clipper Down
The path descending Clipper Down
